Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Behold the power of.... CHUCK??

Forget Oprah and Babs, the real power-endorser in this election is the low-flyin'-fake- fightin'-toup-wearin' Norris! Search engines don't lie people:

The actor who kicked copious butt on "Walker, Texas Ranger" is now attempting to bench press a presidential candidate from obscurity to front-runner with his endorsement of Mike Huckabee. Searches on Norris are up 10% over the past week, but more importantly, lookups on "mike huckabee chuck norris" are up a whopping 457%.

As for Huckabee, the GOP candidate has seen his searches double over the past week. Is it the Norris effect? We looked at searches on two prominent endorsements on the Democratic side to see how celeb buzz is affecting candidates.

Oprah Winfrey has thrown her behemoth buzz behind Barack Obama. We know that Oprah is the largest offline influencer of buzz. Her support has lifted searches on books, cars, and even Dr. Oz. She's hitting the campaign trail with Obama and searches on the senator from Illinois are up 24% this week. Queries on the daytime queen are up 10% as pollsters and pundits watch to see if her powers extend to the political realm.

Singer Barbra Streisand cast her lot with Hillary Clinton and backed the New York senator in her presidential bid. Searches on Babs jumped 31% and Clinton searches sang a happy tune, up 38% this week.

But when it comes to political muscle thus far, no celeb endorsement can measure up to the power of Chuck. His backing of Huckabee helped lift the former governor of Arkansas past his more prominent rivals in buzz.

Oh yeah, and thanks to Chuck, Huck is now polling at #1 in the torture party's (John McCain is honorably excluded from that last statement) Iowa primary race.